Here at BSL, one of our taglines is "All About The Dance".
Other than loving teh-tarik, one of the things you have to know about me is that I can only dance lindy hop and its related dances, i CANNOT dance anything else for nuts. Watch me try hip hop, k-pop or salsa and die laughing. It's less a matter of technical ability and more a matter of not having the interest nor passion to pursue those other dances. I look at those dances and I don't find myself attracted to those dances. They look so...technically difficult, what with the body waves and the body isolations and the disjointed step to step choreography...and also, I simply don't identify with values of those dances. I don't really understand hip hop, and I don't like the music as well. I don't really understand K-pop and I don't listen to the music as well. Salsa is too sexy and attention seeking for me. But when it comes to lindy hop and it's related dances, i can get it. It's about fun. Check. It's about self-expression. Check. It's about freedom. Check and double Check. It's about dancing with someone else in a free and self-expressive way. Triple Check. That's not to say lindy hop can't be serious, street/edgy, romantic, sensual or sexy. There are so many umbrella dances under the SWING dance banner/family that 1. you would not be able to MASTER (i mean master, not learn) them all 2. each one is different yet the same enough and possess some of the other attributes described above. For example, Blues/Slow drag/Grind carries the sexy/sensual attributes. Airsteps carries the "serious" attributes, simply because, if you're not serious in a focused way, they often go wrong and result in injury. Solo Jazz carries the street/edgy attribute. All these in addition to the general attributes we associate with Lindy Hop and some of the vernacular dances coming from the Jazz Age of the 20s to the 50s. Jazz music, in the beginning, was very tough for me to understand (you wont be able to tell by looking at me now but 15 years ago...was a different story). Now when we teach we really break it down for you to hear, and really count you in. One of the wonderful things about jazz and swing jazz in particular, is how simple it really is once you've gotten past the initial barrier to it. Even musicians, who have been trained classically, sometimes find they don't understand jazz and don't know how to play it. It's because we're sometimes stuck behind a wall of our own biased perception - we expect music to be a certain way because we're used to classical, rock, pop or other styles, but then jazz comes along and shakes those perceptions up, then we don't know how to deal with that. Understanding jazz is easier if you come from a period specific cultural perspective. What were the qualities that were culturally significant at that time? How did the people of those times express themselves? What was changing in the culture such that the dance arose with the music? When we look at what's key to our dance, we can also find the same key things in jazz music. Because the sensibility that exists in our dance, certainly exists in the music that grew together with the dance. I'll leave that for you to figure out, and not digress too much from the main content of this blog post. It was during my internship at Singhealth in 2004, that I made my decision that I wanted my life to revolve around this particular dance, Lindy hop and the associated vernacular dances under the big umbrella. Knowing that I can't possibly master all the different dances in this family, I've chosen to focus on - 1. Lindy Hop Under this banner, there are 2 subgroups which must be mentioned a) Airsteps, which is a very rigorous and demanding subgroup requiring a lot of time and effort to train for b) slow lindy, which is as yet, a still-developing subgroup of Lindy Hop so it's rather formative and needs more effort to consolidate 2. Solo Jazz (Vernacular Jazz) previously under the Lindy Hop banner, Vernacular jazz is now coming more and more to the fore. When i started dancing in 2002 there were people who could dance partnerwork but not dance jazz. Nowadays, there are people who can dance jazz but not partnerwork! Phew, how times have changed. I have been dancing solo jazz since 2003, just 1 year after i started dancing partnerwork lindy. 3. Tap - is a large area unto itself and while it grew up in the Harlem Renaissance of the 30s, it is so far beyond that now. 4. Charleston Charleston is a large group as well, in addition to solo dancing, there is partner dancing for charleston, and both these groups can be generally categorized into 20s style or 30s style. When we do pivots on the feet and touches instead of kicks that's 20 style. 30s style is when we do kicks with the bounce. When i look on the dance floor, i see the some basic partner charleston patterns but not complex patterns - well, certainly not as complex as what we can do with our 8/6 count. Many dancers now do not have a strong repertoire of charleston patterns such that they can get through a 200bpm song WITH ONLY charleston partnerwork patterns and not resort to 6/8 count patterns. I am one of those few dancers who can, simply because I've spent time learning and practicing these patterns. As for 20s partnerwork charleston, on the local dance floors, i haven't really seen anyone dance that. The Rest of the Family ... I don't find myself attracted to blues dancing nor shag/balboa/bal-swing as much and also - I already can't finish learning the above dances, can't take on any more on my plate. The word "learn" is tricky, because people would define it differently. When i use the word "learn", i mean - reach a certain level of proficiency that is of some standard. Now - back to All About The Dance. I am a serious teacher, partly because that's my personality but also because i love this dance. So here I am making this distinction - I don't love dancing, I don't love DANCE as an artform, I only LOVE this very specific family of dances. I think it's important to make this distinction because some people just love dancing, no matter what the dance is as long as they get music and get to dance... and some people love all forms of dance, meaning they love dance itself (as an artform) - both of those scenarios are different from each other, and different from me. I only love this family of dances, if somehow, i had to stop dancing I would not dance/learn other types of dance. Maybe knowing that will help you understand the way i behave in class or the way i teach class, or why i can be so serious about this dance. I know it's a bit cliched, but this one is the only one for me. It's my lifelong love affair. Other pretty things may pass my way...but i will never stray. SORRY.......... that was quite cheesy...quite a bad line. I hope the analogy works though - that you get what i mean. Although I am very serious and passionate about this family of dances, I am very aware that dance is not separate from LIFE, like as in, the big picture of Life, the existence that we are all living at any point of time. Dance to me, is not just part of LIFE (the big picture) but also, like a microcosm of life itself. So, for me, if you substitute the word LIFE for DANCE, it makes sense in my own personal perspective. Everything we do in dance, we also do in life. We may not see it as such but we do. So when i dance, i am living. When i dance and i am happy, i am living life happily. When i am working for dance, i am making a living from dance. When i am learning in dance, I am learning in life as well. Some people might ask - how is that possible? What does dance teach you about Life? My Answer - It's possible at so many levels. When I am taking a class and learning new things, I learn many different things at one time. Or more accurately, I am trying to learn many different aspects or levels at one time. A teacher teaches a step or a combination in class. At the most surface level, i.e. the most obvious level, I am learning the movement and rhythm for the step/combination so that i can learn the step and execute it. I am also learning about 1. My own body mechanics as i learn the movement of the step 2. What muscles i am using in order to perform this action safely and efficiently - which i then apply to my daily movement 3. The teacher's "teaching method" - so that if it's really effective and helps students learn better, i can learn it and apply it on my own students, helping them 4. My own process of learning and how i am trying to absorb and assimilate new information and new ways of moving so that in life i can learn quicker and easier with regard to other things 5. The teacher's philosophy behind the way they dance and what they are teaching (this is usually implied, you have to listen and read between the lines to get it) 6. What are the blocks and difficulties that other students are experiencing as they learn this step, which may also be present in their daily lives as a biomechanic dysfunction, or a bad learning process. Now, if that's isn't a big picture scenario, i would not know what else is! I know dancers are so focused only on the surface level, which is really just about the step and how to apply it in their dancing - nothing wrong there, but my personal perspective is quite a bit broader than that, so once again, a peek into how i view this aspect of dance/dancing, and why I don't see it as a separate thing from LIFE. So when I go dancing, i really just go for the dancing. Let's not play semantic/word games here. When i say "I really go for the dancing", it doesn't exclude chit chatting with people, interacting with others, drinking or eating or other stuff. It just means I am there more to dance, than to chit chat, or to eat or drink, the priority is dancing, not the other possible things we could do there. The percentage is probably like an 70/30%. The desire to dance is 70% and the rest is 30% (when i was younger it was like 85/15!). I understand that some people are there for other reasons, or the percentage weightage about dance is different. It could be the other way around, 70% others and 30% dance. I am not going to judge what weightage others give to dance, but I would like to point out some things about a scenario where the OTHERS outweigh the DANCE. 1. The standard of dancing won't be high because the priority is not there. Whether or not that is a good or bad thing really depends on how important the dancing is to you personally. For someone like me, having bad dances all night is.....ugh. I think that applies to all the dancers (teachers included) who have worked on their dancing and have reached higher and higher standards, only to come to a community/scene and then have to dance down because the standard is not high. Nobody is going to say it - that they didn't enjoy themselves, but inside, quietly, that is what they felt. It then creates a silent rift between dancers who like to be good and have worked at it and dancers who arent concerned whether or not they are good and just dance to enjoy themselves. The ones who aren't concerned don't feel it, because as per etiquette, most dancers rarely refuse a dance, so there's little way a good dancer can refuse to dance with a bad dancer without being rude. So the bad dancers get away with bad dancing, and the good dancers suffer quietly inside. 2. Why use dance, if dance is not going to be the focal point around which a community gathers? Singaporeans, we love to travel and we love to eat, and we love to have get-togethers and eat and celebrate. There is nothing wrong with that, but when those things become the focal point of any dance community, then it sort of defeats the purpose of having the dance in the first place. Might as well skip the dancing part and just get down to the part which everyone is really there for, the shopping, or the travelling or the eating, or the get-together. Sometimes we have to ask ourselves, why are we really here (at so & so dance event)? Is it to dance, or is it just so we can have a party? And if the answer is "to have a party" why did it have to involve dance in the first place? Some people might ask - What's wrong with that? That the reason for the community to come together is not dance but something else. I would say - Then the dance becomes irrelevant and will fade away, and disappear from the landscape like an extinct species. Things which become less and less relevant will fade away inevitably. Once again whether or not that is a good or bad thing comes down to how important dancing is to you personally. If the dance fades away and there's no loss in your life - fair enough. It would not be the same for other people though, just saying right? To explain it another way - any kind of club or association - music, gardening, literature, origami, whatever it is - all these clubs or associations by nature, must have at their core - the activity for which they were formed. It would not make sense for the gardening club to do 15 mins of gardening, then everyone packs up and then goes for 2 hours of hanging out and chit chat at a cafe...and that more and more people join the gardening club, not because they want to get involved with gardening but to join these awesome 2 hour chit chat get-togethers at the cafe that the gardening club is famous for. Nothing wrong with 2 hour chit chats, but that defeats the purpose of the gardening in the first place, no? 2a) tagging on from previously, I would personally argue that the loss of this family of dances from the Singapore scene is indeed a tragedy. It brings much joy and much needed outlet for many people and we should continue to grow and support it because i feel that it can do so much for peoples' lives in Singapore, if these people were to give this dance a chance to grow in their lives and enrich it. 3. Sometimes local dancers come back from overseas dance communities and gush about how wonderful it was to have danced there etc etc (usually with an implied meaning of - how much better it was compared to dancing back here in SG), and i completely agree with those comments except that a) the reason why it was better there was because the people in those communities placed a higher priority on dance than on the "other" things b) if the dancers liked what they experienced overseas, but are not interested in playing their part to help build the local community so it can grow into the overseas community from where they just had that marvelous experience, then...... they actually have no business comparing it to the local community and gushing about how wonderful it was in comparison. That's like so typical complainers' syndrome loh - don't like something but then not willing to work at it to enable the change to come about but then still want to make the comparison. (pardon my usage of Singlish here, it's just so apt i think) Again - don't want to judge - just want to point out that if you had enjoyed your overseas experience, and you would like that experience to be present in SG community as well, then one of the ways to make that happen is for there to be a culture where more priority is given to dancing. In my opinion, SG is really one of the stronger communities in Asia when it comes to Lindy Hop, but i think we can go further if people were to place on priority on dance in this community. If you were to ask me - What would be the benefit or reward for people to do that, put in more time and effort into dancing?...I would not know how to answer you other than -it's so enjoyable and so rewarding on so many other levels than just what is immediately obvious, like getting to know people, having a group to hang out with, having something to do over having nothing to do....For me being able to connect with people physically while dancing and being able to self-express and communicate non verbally through social dancing is one of those things which i'm not sure i can find elsewhere so that keeps me coming back to it. If you've never experienced that before, how dancing can make you happy....give dance a bit more priority and time and see where that leads you. I can assure you that it has happened for many people around the world, that's why they all dance. Once again, it just boils down to how important the dancing is to any given person. (in a future blog post, I will write about how to be efficient with time and practice given the modern world's busy busy schedule) I think between the 3 teachers in SG, Sing, Sinclair and me, we all think the dancing is important, and not because we teach it, or we make a living from it, or what-nots. I think we all just believe in Swing Dance/Lindy hop as tool for life, that it really feels good and can make people happy, and central to that enriching experience of Lindy Hop, is good dancing, which comes about through a good amount of focus and priority on dancing. I don't want to give this idea that only good dancers have an enriching Lindy Hop experience, but maybe a food analogy is good here - the $3 econ rice can be as good a meal as a $30 restaurant main course, as long as they are both good. There's place for both to exist, in different contexts, when they are both good. But if they are both bad, not nice to eat...then you wouldn't even pay $3 to eat bad food, much less $30. Good food comes from a certain set of priorities - hygiene, fresh ingredients, prepared with some skill and love....etc etc. It can be applied to the dance and dancing as well. Good dancing will come from having certain priorities as well. How is it that Lindy Hop and the other associated dances can fascinate us endlessly on Youtube...when we're watching a performance, or make us feel something inside when you watch 2 good dancers social dance? When i watch videos of Frankie (usually social) dancing in the early 90s,I really feel something emotional inside me that makes me smile and then I think, i need to learn more so i can have a bit of that magic that Frankie had in his 80s. .To me that's how the logic stacks up. I hope i have brought some new perspectives with this blog post and see you on the dance floor soon. Comments are closed.
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